


where we go next

by oneworldaway



Category: Nikita (TV 2010)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:11:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneworldaway/pseuds/oneworldaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It continues to come as a surprise just how well she knows him, but he’s not sure why he doesn’t expect it by now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where we go next

**Author's Note:**

> Title is inspired by the conversation Birkhoff and Sonya have in 3.21 about where they'll go after Division. The documentary Sonya recalls the two of them watching is _Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope_. Pure, unabashed fluff. Beta'd by my dear [Emily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/freyafrida/pseuds/freyafrida)!

“ _Eloped?!_ ” he all but bellows a moment after he’s caught sight of her, and Sonya sighs, biting back a smile.

“Nikita called you too?” she asks, much more quietly, once he reaches her. Airport staff eyes him suspiciously after his outburst, but Birkhoff doesn’t seem to notice. He’s had a fair bit of practice with ignoring such looks, Sonya notes.

“Mikey on video chat,” he says, bringing the volume down to some semblance of an indoor voice, at least. “First I’m the last to find out they’re engaged, then I don’t even get to be his best man? Those two have shown blatant disregard for the rules of friendship in the past, but there’s a _line_.”

“Seymour.”

“Unbelievable. After everything I’ve done for them. You know, they wouldn’t even be _alive_ right now if it weren’t for me!”

“Seymour--”

“We need to elope,” he says, and Sonya gets that same funny, twisty feeling in her chest she had the first time she met Birkhoff face to face, only about ten times funnier and twistier. “We don’t get to go to their wedding, why should they get to come to ours?” he continues. “It’s only fair.”

Sonya takes a deep breath and wills her voice to come out sounding normal. “First of all, we are not _revenge eloping_ ,” she says. “Second of all, that better not have been your proposal.”

It isn’t often that Birkhoff is caught _completely_ off guard. Back when Sonya was Division and he was rogue, and they were, for all intents and purposes, nemeses, Sonya sometimes daydreamed about leaving just this sort of gobsmacked look on his face. (It’s possible that she spent a little more time thinking about him and his face than was entirely normal for a nemesis.) For a long moment, he hardly moves at all, though his eyes slowly grow wider and wider. It’s all Sonya can do not to laugh.

“Of course not,” Birkhoff says at last, scoffing. “Please. Is that how little you think of me? No, my proposal is gonna blow your mind.” He steps right into her space, holding her gaze intently. “You just wait.” With that, he spins on his heel and begins to make his way out of the airport.

Sonya smiles at the floor a moment before catching up.

~

She suspects he’s planning something the minute he suggests they go to this convention. After all, they spent one of their first ever date nights snuggled up on his couch watching that Comic-Con documentary, part of which followed one attendee who proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of a panel. That kind of gesture is totally Birkhoff’s style, too.

She finds herself holding her breath all weekend, but the moment never comes; not during either of the panels they attend, not in front of Stan Lee when a gleeful Birkhoff gets his autograph, and not after Birkhoff buys her the game she’s been eyeing and she kisses him soundly in the middle of dealer’s room. Not even when he first sees her in her new and improved Princess Zelda cosplay and he looks like he might drop whatever plan he’s cooked up altogether and just ask her right then and there. As the weekend draws to an end, Sonya wonders if he’s got something even _bigger_ planned. She wouldn’t be all that surprised if a flash mob were involved.

They head back to their hotel room Sunday afternoon so Sonya can change into something more practical before their final round of the dealer’s room. While she changes, Birkhoff sprawls out on the bed with his laptop, and by the time she’s ready, he’s fully absorbed in the coding he’s been working on the past couple of nights.

“Babe, could you take a look at this?” he asks as she sits down beside him, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. “I think I’m stuck.”

Sonya raises an eyebrow at him. “You’re stuck?” It took awhile, after the whole “nemeses” thing, to adjust to working collaboratively, but by now it comes easily to them. Pride doesn’t get in the way, and they willingly seek out each other’s ideas as they work, knowing they each have a different perspective and can fill in the gaps where the other is lacking. But neither of them get totally stuck very often, and when Birkhoff does, he tends to throw minor fits. Yet here he is, stretched out on the hotel bed, cool as a cucumber. Something is amiss.

“There’s just this one part I can’t seem to work out on my own,” he says, passing her the laptop. “Any ideas?”

Sonya frowns as she scrolls through the code. “Everything looks fine to m--”

At the end of one line of coding, after a few spaces, is a single word. _Will_.

Birkhoff blinks innocently at her.

Sonya continues to scroll, finding three more lines that end in such a manner, with words that have nothing to do with the rest of the code.

_Will_

_you_

_marry_

_me?_

When she looks up at Birkhoff again, he’s holding a small box.

They never do make it back to the dealer’s room.

~

“He made it too, huh?” Birkhoff mutters, just loudly enough for only Sonya to hear, and she swats at his arm. They both know he doesn’t really mean it, though; since he helped them nail Amanda, their little group has pretty well come to trust Sam, or Owen, or whoever he is now. He was there for them when it mattered most, and that counts for a lot. The way he and Birkhoff (and he and Michael) rib at each other now almost feels like the way it was before, when he was just Owen, and Birkhoff supposes that’s a good sign. So really, he’s obligated to make such comments when Alex shows up for their wedding with Sam in tow.

“Play nice,” Alex warns, the corners of her lips turning up even as she narrows her eyes at Birkhoff.

“You’ve seen how he plays, right?”

“So we’re all set, then?” she asks Sonya, ignoring him.

“Nikita and Michael are out back,” says Sonya, nodding towards the backyard.

It wasn’t a very long engagement - they decided to get everyone together as soon as their schedules all aligned, and have a small ceremony at home. Michael’s the best man (in spite of Birkhoff’s lingering resentment over the whole eloping thing), Alex is Sonya’s maid of honour, and in the spirit of keeping things in the family--

“What’s this I hear about Nikita getting ordained?” asks Sam, cocking an eyebrow at the bride and groom.

“We wanted to include her, and she went for it,” says Sonya, smiling at Birkhoff. She kept it a surprise right up until Nikita arrived, an idea she’d thought up so Birkhoff “wouldn’t have to feel bad only being able to make one of your best friends your best man.” It continues to come as a surprise just how well she knows him, but he’s not sure why he doesn’t expect it by now.

“I’m sure you’ll enjoy the view from your seat, though,” says Birkhoff, clapping Sam on the shoulder.

“Or we could let him be in the wedding party, too,” says Alex. “He could be your ring bearer!”

It’s Birkhoff’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Ring bearer? Isn’t this the same guy who tried to steal your diamonds once?”

Alex waves him off. “Ancient history.”

 

 

Nikita sidles up next to him a ways away from the rest of the group. He’s watching Sonya as she laughs over something with Alex, and it takes him a minute to notice her there.

“You ready for this, Nerd?”

Birkhoff sighs. “You know, I never thought I’d find someone like her. She doesn’t even just tolerate me - she _loves_ me. Really loves me.” He looks at Nikita, eyes glistening a little. “And she makes me better.”

“That’s what love is,” says Nikita, sliding an arm around his waist and leaning her head on his shoulder. They stand like this for awhile, watching the people they love most as they talk and laugh together in the fading daylight.

“So, what do you say,” she asks, straightening up and holding out an elbow to Birkhoff. He frowns.

“What, you’re gonna walk me down the aisle now, too?”

Nikita shrugs. “Well they _are_ all waiting for us over there...”

He pauses a moment. “Oh, screw it,” he says, and links arms with her.

~

As soon as she’s pulled the car to a stop, she catches a glimpse of a headful of curls in one of the upstairs windows, before it disappears in a fluttering of curtains. The door to the house swings open before she’s even made it up the front steps. The little boy takes a deep breath, but before he can begin to yell, she holds a finger to her lips. “Shh,” she whispers. “Remember the plan?”

“Oh, right!” whispers the boy, grinning up at her. Quiet as a mouse, he leads her inside, shutting the door behind them.

Birkhoff doesn’t bother to look up from his screen at the sound of their footsteps. “You might as well just tell me, babe. I know you’ve got some kind of birthday surprise planned for me, you’ve been way too quiet all morning, and--”

“Surprise!” shout Nikita and the little boy, and in spite of Birkhoff’s suspicions, it really is.

Birkhoff looks back and forth between the two of them, making his best effort to keep a straight face. “Now what have we told you about opening the door to strange people?” he asks the boy.

“Auntie Nikki isn’t a stranger!” he squeals, running into his father’s arms. Birkhoff turns him upside down in his lap and tickles him, while his son shrieks with laughter.

“Michael got held up with some stuff, but he promises he’ll be here for dinner,” says Nikita, smiling fondly at the pair in front of her as Birkhoff stands, hoisting his kid up over his shoulder.

“‘Kay, well just don’t spoil the surprise for him, then,” says Birkhoff, and Nikita looks at him questioningly. “Or did you think you were the only one with something up your sleeve today?” He turns around a little so his son can face Nikita. “You wanna tell her the news, bud?”

“About my baby sister?” he asks, and Nikita gasps softly.

“Surprise,” says Birkhoff.

Sonya comes downstairs, then, holding her belly. “He insisted on keeping it to ourselves for awhile,” she says. “Still not over the fact that I wouldn’t secretly elope with him, or something.”

“If I’d had _my_ way,” he notes, “you wouldn’t have known until she was in labour.”

“Don’t mind him,” says Sonya, hugging Nikita.

“It must be so much work for you, having two boys to look after,” Nikita quips, and Birkhoff scowls as his son scurries out of his arms and into the den, undoubtedly to find some toy to excitedly show their guest.

But Nikita saunters back over to him, wrapping him into a hug, and he sighs in defeat. “Happy birthday, Nerd,” she says, and he supposes he can’t _really_ stay mad.

Over her shoulder, he smiles at his wife, mouthing a “thank you” for his surprise. Sonya only winks before blinding him with the flash of her camera.


End file.
